So after having my story “The Pretty Fall” accepted in September of 2012, it finally appears in the new issue of Passages North! And it was well worth the wait, if only for that awesomely weird and wonderful cover.
“A prayer for The Tightrope Artist’s ankles.
The Tightrope Artist was known all over for her delicate ankles. When she performed her crowd-drawing stunts, barely anyone remembered her pretty face afterward, and it was such a pretty face, too, all small features with doll-like porcelain skin and eyes like a Siamese cat. And no, they didn’t recall what she was wearing, either, not the shining sequins on her bodice or the skirt flared out like a ballerina’s; no, it was those ankles they could not ever forget. Ah, her ankles. Like God himself had molded them out of the clay of the earth and attached them to the bottom of her legs. There was something about the way they bent as she took one daring step after another. First timers to her performances couldn’t believe their eyes, in soft wonder they would whisper, “Amazing, just amazing. It’s as if they balance her whole body for her. So effortless.”
As The Tightrope Artist began her long fall, you began praying to as many deities as you could recall, please God, who art in heaven, oh Allah, all praise, and the lovely, vengeful Hera, and the peaceful Buddha, please, please not our ankles. You prayed for the talus bone, and the calcaneus bone, and all the cuneiform bones, and all the other ankle bones you could not recite from memory. On the descent, The Tightrope Artist and you became the same worshipper untied in a swell of please, please, please. And perhaps someone was listening to you, although you would never know, maybe Drogo, the patron saint of broken bones, because The Tightrope Artist’s ankles were about the only bones that weren’t broken after she hit the ground.”
we once lived in caves 